Fun with F-words

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.

It’s Friday and F-words are on my mind.

Flow

Are you in the flow? That’s my new mantra. Flow is how your day is going when you are having fun, when time flies, when you move seamlessly from task to task, from person to person, with relative ease. It doesn’t have to be ecstatic, though it certainly can be, but it is satisfying and rewarding.

Feeling

Often it’s easier to notice when we are not in the flow. We feel bad. We feel sad. We feel angry. Those are signals that we are stuck – in opposing, in avoiding, in a hamster wheel.

Feelings are great traffic signals, those flashing yellow lights. Attention, heads up, fork ahead! Are you still on the road?

Fight, flee, flounder, finding faults

Fights can be a great way to flow, naturally, as long as we are not fighting ourselves. Most of the time, though, fighting seems to be against ourselves or our better judgement – in opposing others or avoiding the situation. Same goes for finding faults, unexpressed frustration, fright and other unreleased old “bad” feelings.

Fresh and free flow

Conversely, when we face the situation, when we allow it to unfold without opposing it, we flow. We feel free. We feel part of it. We fly. We have fun.

Forts, flirts and foundries

In simplistic terms astrological houses is what we do, how we engage various facets of our lives. Fourth is where we live or come from, fifth is our children (including inner playful child) and sixth is our work (such as job, gym and pets).

I chose these three houses because they are especially relevant to flow.

Forts (the fourth house) – home, family and founding fathers

As you guessed by now this house covers roots, family, house and other unmovable possessions. If we go deeper it’s probably our foundation.

My favorite one word definition of 4th is “position”. This unorthodox description comes from a teacher of mine. I love it because you can be a homeless orphan with no unmovable possessions, no family and fuzzy roots, but you still take your position in any situation – you choose “where you stand” and who you are, what role you play, which side you are on. All of which is influenced by where you come from and what you went through.

Another reason I love it is that unless you grew up on a barge (as one friend of mine has), your house is pretty stationary (as in “unmovable possessions” some ancient astrologer came up with), but your position keeps evolving (at least it can). With a bit of imagination you can try on all kinds of roles – perhaps a king, a princess, head of the household, a pirate or a wizard. It’s a pity we grow up to replace all that with rigid and boring binary labels or flags (democrat/republican, liberal/conservative, believer/atheist, pro-X/anti-X). Then we get stuck defending our adopted forts or bunkers. We go bonkers each time we see a different flag on a different fort.

Your mom or dad (same sex parent), also ruled by 4th, were not all that flat either – there were facets to them you saw, or imagined, that others didn’t, Some loose that depth of perception as they grow up, some rediscover it as they mature.

This is a fun house! Full of children, games, laughter. It plays well with 4th above because 5th is Imagination – another unorthodox definition. You imagine yourself being a pirate, you can see and smell the sea, you scream “à l’abordage” and you jump aboard the living room couch or a bedroom… well bedroom is another fun part of the 5th house.

Silliness – you see it in children. They are not afraid to be seen as stupid (until we train them to be). So put farts next to forts (here, I could not contain myself any longer), fart with pride, be as silly as you like – it’s a medicine to our heart (which is connected to 5th via Leo) and soul.

So point to all this – imagination is way underrated. From play and flirt, to conceiving and enjoying children (real or allegorical), to playing and flirting again – hail to pleasure, joy and fun!

But does it need to be viewed as doom and gloom? Wasn’t it fun to cook for friends, prepare the house, shop for presents? Wasn’t it great in (or after) the exercise even if it took a bloody inner battle to begin? Wasn’t your dog leaking your face in gratitude when she did her business outside? Wasn’t she transmitting happiness to your body and soul?

We can’t exist without these kinds of engagements. We’d be isolated, depressed, get ill and die prematurely. That’s why this house of Communion (yes, another uncommon and rather archaic name for this) is next to houses of position and imagination, of foundation and fun – here we “work” with it, play with it, learn it, master it, evolve it.

Work is a great place to practice flow!

We can flow at work, we all had these moments. We can loose ourselves in a house chore. As I initially misspelled it as choir – yes, coworkers, collaboration, co-creators – all part of this house. Sing along!

Service is another loaded word – we can serve master, corporation, cause or god. But the idea is that we are part of something larger, we are caretakers of something (or someone), and as such we take care, practice, collaborate, learn and evolve. Washing brushes for your master artist was a common way to become artist yourself, long tradition of skill transfer. Both the disciple and the master may have served the patron, perhaps in their estimation they also served the (Master of the) Universe.

Final thoughts

Flow – it’s great, it’s fun, seems to be our design and birthright

Feelings – tell us if we are in the flow and prevent flow if we hold on to them

Positions – contrary to popular belief we are fluid by nature, we used to be nomads

Imagination – is not avoidance or lie, it’s how we achieve anything new

Communion – is how we move with each other, at work, at home, at play or in dream space.